Despite a wealth of electronic group tools for coordinating the software development process, instead we find technologically adept groups preferring to use what seem to be outmoded “material” tools in critical projects. The current ethnographic study investigates this apparent paradox. We begin by building up a detailed picture of the overall software development process and identify critical general problems in achieving coordination. Coordination problems arise in software development not only because of the complex dependencies that hold among the work of different individuals, but also for social and motivational reasons. We identify the central role of the schedule as a coordination device, but find that its value can be undermined because the schedule is often neither accurate, current nor credible. As a result, the schedule is not used as a resource for individual or group planning. We then compare coordination in two development groups, one using electronic and the other material scheduling tools. We found that the medium of the schedule has a major impact on coordination problems. The size, public location and physical qualities of material tools engender certain crucial group processes that current electronic technologies fail to support. A large wallboard located in a public area encouraged greater responsibility, commitment and updating and its material properties served to encourage more reflective planning. As a result the wallboard schedule was both accurate and current. Furthermore, the public nature of the wallboard promoted group interaction around the board, it enabled collaborative problem solving, as well as informing individuals about the local and global progress of the project. Despite these benefits, however, the material tool fell short on several other dimensions such as distribution, complex dependency tracking, and versioning. We make design recommendations about how the benefits of material tools could be incorporated into electronic groupware systems and discuss the theoretical implications of this work.

This paper proposes that maintaining "mutual knowledge" is a central problem of geographically dispersed collaboration and traces the consequences of failure to do so. It presents a model of these processes which is grounded in study of thirteen geographically dispersed teams. Five types of problems constituting failures of mutual knowledge are identified: failure to communicate and retain contextual information, unevenly distributed information, difficulty communicating and understanding the salience of information, differences in speed of access to information, and difficulty interpreting the meaning of silence. The frequency of occurrence and severity of each problem in the teams are analyzed. Attribution theory, the concept of cognitive load, and feedback dynamics are harnessed to explain how dispersed partners are likely to interpret failures of mutual knowledge and the consequences of these interpretations for the integrity of the effort. In particular, it is suggested that unrecognized differences in the situations, contexts, and constraints of dispersed collaborators constitute "hidden profiles" that can increase the likelihood of dispositional rather than situational attribution, with consequences for cohesion and learning. Moderators and accelerators of these dynamics are identified, and implications for both dispersed and collocated collaboration are discussed.

Distributed teams, sometimes called virtual teams, are becoming increasingly prevalent as businesses bring geographically dispersed members together to achieve a common goal. A framework for understanding geographically distributed teams based on their time span is yet to be developed. The authors believe that theory building in this area has centered on temporary teams and propose that many distributed teams have ongoing and recurring tasks. Using attention focus and the shadow of the future models, this article presents a framework for understanding the differences between temporary and ongoing distributed teams? structure, processes, and outcomes, suggesting that ongoing distributed teams must tackle more process and structural issues than temporary teams and that findings of virtual teams research thus far may not always apply here. The model also implies that ongoing distributed teams are more difficult to manage and experience greater variance in well-being outcome levels, whereas in temporary teams, members are more focused on task-related (production) outcomes. 10.1177/1046496406294323

Social cognitive theory is used to develop a research model that was tested by examining employees? experiences of being a member in a traditional or virtual team. A self-efficacy for teamwork measure was developed based on best practices identified through case studies and existing literature. Then a survey of team members demonstrated that self-efficacy for teamwork is influenced by fellow team members? modeling practices and relates strongly to a team member?s perceptions of effectiveness. Differential outcomes for traditional and two types of technology-supported virtual teams (distributed and hybrid) were found: Self-efficacy for teamwork was more important in virtual teams, providing empirical support for the importance of the best practices in this context. 10.1177/1046496406296961